“What we had wasn’t robust enough to handle the multiple users and the terrain we operate in,” said Mary Currie, Golden Gate Transit spokeswoman. The district ended its Wi-Fi program on Friday.

Officials said it is was not worth spending about $6,000 a month on a wireless Internet service that was spotty at best for Golden Gate’s 20,000 daily passengers.

But the transit district is not abandoning Wi-Fi completely. It will look at using a stronger 4G network to see if that will work better.

“We hope to be back to the public in about six months,” Currie said.

The bus Wi-Fi project cost the district about $245,000 to get up and running in 2011. While the district paid for the hardware, the Wi-Fi service itself was provided free by Los Angles-based FreeFi Networks, which hoped to make up the cost in advertising to the district’s clientele.

But about six months ago FreeFi Networks went out of business and the district has had to finance the WiFi service, officials said. The investment is not a total loss; existing equipment will be upgraded and used for the 4G network.

While realizing the service wasn’t the best, some passengers are unhappy about the decision. They are now left without any way to start their work days early, check emails or just surf the Internet.

“I’m incredibly disappointed at the decision to abandon Wi-Fi,” wrote a passenger on the transit district’s Facebook page. “Yes, it’s intermittent and unreliable, but at least it works some of the time instead of none. I spend 3 hours each day on GGT, and now you have made that a lot more miserable.”

Another passenger sent an email to the district: “It is horrible that you are disconnecting Wi-Fi on the buses. The rides to/from Sonoma County are long and dismal, and Wi-Fi was one bright spot in the long commute. It was helpful to catch up on email during the ride, and definitely saved charges for minutes from the greedy phone companies. Maybe you could save money by just handing out sleeping pills to your Petaluma and Santa Rosa riders.”

Meanwhile, there are also plans to provide Wi-Fi to the 7,000 daily ferry riders who take boats into San Francisco from Larkspur and Sausalito.

Tests so far, however, have not gone smoothly. While water is a good conduit for radio signals, it reflects cell networks.